Friday, June 02, 2006

Idiot O'Reilly Attempt at Historical Revisionism

On December 17, 1944, near the town of Malmedy in Belgium, the German SS battled the American 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion, successfully forcing the Americans to surrender. About 150 U.S. prisoners of war were sent to stand in a field where the SS proceeded to shoot them down. An estimated 84 prisoners were killed while the others escaped into the woods.

Those SS troops were later captured, and put on trial after the war. Of the 77 defendants, over 40 originally received death sentences, later commuted to life imprisonment.

What makes this historical tragedy interesting is that on this past Tuesday (May 30) on his show "The O'Reilly Factor," Bill O'Reilly cited the Malmedy Massacre in a discussion with Gen Wesley Clark. O'Reilly was defending the actions of the soldiers in the alleged Haditha massacre in Iraq, proclaiming:

"And in Malmedy, as you know, U.S. forces captured S.S. forces, who had their hands in the air. And they were unarmed. And they shot them down. You know that. That's on the record. Been documented."

Amazingly, O'Reilly got it completely backwards.

Now, one would think that O'Reilly would issue a correction the next night. Wrong. In fact, in the mail segment, a viewer corrected O'Reilly. Donn Caldwell from Fort Worth, TX wrote:

"Bill, you mentioned Malmedy as the site of an American massacre durign World War II. It was the other way around, the SS shot down U.S. prisoners."

O'Reilly's response was:

"In the heat of my debate with Gen. Clark, my statement wasn't clear enough, Mr. Caldwell. After Malmedy, some German captives were executed by American troops."

Talk about chutzpah! Cover up a mistake with another mistake. While Allied troops did threaten to kill SS troops (as well as paratroopers) in the aftermath of Malmedy, there's no evidence any such abuses happened. Plus, as indicated above, the Allies had captured the perpetrators and, rather than slaughter them in a like manner, tried them instead.

But the best part of the story is this. You can go to the FOXNEWS.com website and see the video of the segment with Gen. Clark and hear the segment:

"And in Malmedy, as you know, U.S. forces captured S.S. forces, who had their hands in the air. And they were unarmed. And they shot them down. You know that. That's on the record. Been documented."

Yet, go to the same site and look at the written transcript, and here's what you will find:

"And in ***Normandy***, as you know, U.S. forces captured S.S. forces, who had their hands in the air. And they were unarmed. And they shot them down. You know that. That's on the record. Been documented." [emphasis added]

Not surprisingly, Keith Olbermann, who delights in savaging O'Reilly, covered Bill-cum-revisionist-historian last night on his "Countdown" show.

It will be interesting to see if O'Reilly responds. Maybe he'll launch an economic boycott of Olbermann?